There is a compelling public stake in education. As anyone who listens to the news understands, however, our educational institutions are not meeting the public's expectations regarding education. There is a great need to improve educational quality in both public and private educational institutions. The first problem in improving educational quality is assessing the quality of the educational program or institution. Educators have to show their effectiveness and the chief indicator by which most communities judge a school staff's success is student performance on standardized achievement tests. As is repeatedly discussed and debated in the media, however, standardized tests may not accurately show the quality of education. They merely make norm-referenced interpretations of students' knowledge and/or skills in relationship to those of students nationally.
In addition, standardized tests do not take into account the multi-dimensional aspect of a person's education. For instance, the standardized tests do not account for a student's innate intellectual ability. Standardized tests also fail to account for a student's learning outside of the school setting. There is no national standard for these standardized tests. Different states choose somewhat different educational objectives or different content standards. Further, some states do not even use the same standardized tests for all of the counties within that state. There is a national call for an assessment system that can be applied to each and every school in each school district in each county in each state of the United States of America.
The problem with assessing the quality of education becomes worse when one's attention is directed to early childhood education and care. No standardized tests are administered to our kindergarten students, pre-school students, and child care attendees. Thus, assessing the quality of such programs is difficult and very subjective, with many parents relying on the recommendations of other parents (who may place different values on education) or their own gut feelings about a facility.
Millions of children are receiving early care and education that is inadequate, with many receiving care that is actually or potentially harmful to their development and learning capacities. More children are experiencing child care and pre-school than ever before in America's history. For example, in 1950, 1 mother in 10 worked outside the home. Today, more than 6 out of 10 mothers of children under three are working outside the home, and that number is projected to increase to more than 7 out of 10 by 2005. Research shows that 87% of out-of-home child care settings are considered poor or mediocre.
From birth to age 5, children are in a period of explosive brain development and growth. This age period is critical to a child's social and cognitive development. 85% of a person's intellect, personality and social skills are developed by age five. Yet, 95% of public investment in education occurs after children reach the age of five—when the most critical learning years have passed. Indeed, our society does not even begin its only measure, standardized tests, of education until the child is in the 1st grade—age 6 or 7. This may be because of the difficulties and expense of testing children under the age of 6 or 7. Children below the age of 6 or 7 are pre-verbal and pre-literate so testing methodologies are difficult and measuring actual learning in children below 6 or 7 can be next to impossible.
The American Association for Higher Education has published an article entitled “Nine Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning”, incorporated herein by reference. One familiar with education and educational programs will recognize that these principles can be applied to any level of education.
The first principle is that the assessment of student learning begins with educational values. The Association states that assessment is not an end in itself but a vehicle for educational improvement. Educational values should drive not only what is assessed but also how it is assessed.
The second principle in the assessment of learning is to recognize that assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as multi-dimensional, integrated, and revealed in performance over time. As the Association states, learning is a complex process. It entails not only what students know, but what they can do with what they know.
The third principle is that assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes. The fourth principle is that assessment requires attention to outcomes but also and equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes. The fifth principle is that assessment works best when it is ongoing, not episodic.
The sixth principle is that assessment fosters wider improvement when representatives from across the educational community are involved. This means getting the students, the teachers, the parents, the administration and the community working together as one cohesive group. The seventh principle is that assessment makes a difference when it begins with issues of use and illuminates questions that people really care about. The eighth principle is that assessment is most likely to lead to improvement when it is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change. The ninth and last principle is a recognition that through assessment, educators meet responsibilities to students and to the public.
No comprehensive assessment tool of learning that embodies these nine principles presently exists. There is also no comprehensive assessment tool that measures the learning program which will embody these nine principles. Thus, there is a long-felt and unsolved need for an assessment tool for educational programs, adaptable to all levels of education, preferably embodying or recognizing the nine principles of assessing learning, as applied to a educational program.